Go Green with Green Teamwork: We provide eco friendly tips and simple actions you can take to live a cleaner, greener life starting today! There are many simple green things you can do in your daily life — what you eat, how you clean, lighting choices, what you drive, how you build your home — that can have an effect on your immediate surroundings and the planet.

How Hybrids Get Such Great Gas Mileage!

Shop and Compare top selling Hybrid cars

It is no accident that the most fuel efficient vehicles in some classes for this model year are hybrid-electric vehicles (HEVs). Hybrids combine the best features of the internal combustion engine with an electric motor, and they can be configured to achieve a variety of different objectives, such as improving fuel economy, boosting performance, or providing electrical power to auxiliary loads such as power tools.

HEVs are primarily propelled by an internal combustion engine, just like conventional vehicles. However, they also convert energy normally wasted during coasting and braking into electricity, which is stored in a battery until needed by the electric motor. The electric motor is used to assist the engine when accelerating or hill climbing and in low-speed driving conditions where internal combustion engines are least efficient. Some HEVs also automatically shut off the engine when the vehicle comes to a stop and restart it when the accelerator is pressed. This prevents wasted energy from idling.

Unlike all-electric vehicles, HEVs now being offered do not need to be plugged into an external source of electricity to be recharged; conventional gasoline and regenerative braking provide all the energy the vehicle needs.

How Hybrids Work
Hybrid-electric vehicles (HEVs) combine the benefits of gasoline engines and electric motors and can be configured to obtain different objectives, such as improved fuel economy, increased power, or additional auxiliary power for electronic devices and power tools.

Some of the advanced technologies typically used by hybrids include

Regenerative Braking. The electric motor applies resistance to the drivetrain causing the wheels to slow down. In return, the energy from the wheels turns the motor, which functions as a generator, converting energy normally wasted during coasting and braking into electricity, which is stored in a battery until needed by the electric motor.

Electric Motor Drive/Assist. The electric motor provides additional power to assist the engine in accelerating, passing, or hill climbing. This allows a smaller, more efficient engine to be used. In some vehicles, the motor alone provides power for low-speed driving conditions where internal combustion engines are least efficient.

Automatic Start/Shutoff. Automatically shuts off the engine when the vehicle comes to a stop and restarts it when the accelerator is pressed. This prevents wasted energy from idling.

Hybrid and Vehicle Systems
We offer these external links for your convenience in accessing additional information that may be useful or interesting to you.
Hybrid Vehicles & Manfuacturers

Ford & Mercury
* Ford Escape Hybrid
* Mazda Tribute Hybrid
* Mercury Mariner Hybrid

General Motors
* Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid
* GMC Sierra Hybrid
* Saturn Aura Greenline
* Saturn Vue Greenline

Honda
* Honda Civic Hybrid

Nissan
* Nissan Altima Hybrid

Toyota & Lexus
* Toyota Camry Hybrid
* Toyota Highlander Hybrid
* Toyota Prius
* Lexus GS 450h
* Lexus LS 600h
* Lexus RX 400h

Nissan Altima Hybrid
• The EPA has designated the Altima Hybrid an Advanced Technology Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle (AT-PZEV).

• Features forward-thinking technology like electronically controlled Continously Variable Transmission (eCVT), available touch-screen Navigation System with voice recognition and RearView Monitor [1], and Bluetooth® Hands-Free Phone System.

Hybrid Electric Vehicles
Both technologies come together in hybrid electric vehicles, also known as HEVs or hybrids. Present-day hybrids are equipped with ICEs and electric motors. A hybrid's ICE engine, as in any ICE-powered car, produces power through continuous, controlled explosions that push down pistons connected to a rotating crankshaft. That rotating force (torque) is ultimately transmitted to the vehicle's wheels.

A hybrid's electric motor is energized by a battery, which produces power through a chemical reaction. The battery is continuously recharged by a generator that—like the alternator of a conventional car—is driven by the ICE.

Hybrids can have a parallel design, a series design, or a combination of both:
* In a parallel design, the energy conversion unit and electric propulsion system are connected directly to the vehicle's wheels. The primary engine is used for highway driving; the electric motor provides added power during hill climbs, acceleration, and other periods of high demand.

* In a series design, the primary engine is connected to a generator that produces electricity. The electricity charges the batteries, which drive an electric motor that powers the wheels. HEVs can also be built to use the series configuration at low speeds and the parallel configuration for highway driving and acceleration.

In conventional vehicles, energy from deceleration is wasted as it dissipates. In some hybrid vehicles, regenerative braking systems capture that energy, store it, and convert it to electricity to help propel the vehicle—ultimately increasing overall efficiency. Some hybrids also use ultracapacitors to extend the life of a hybrid vehicle's on-board battery system because they are better suited to capturing high power from regenerative braking and releasing it for initial acceleration. Learn more about HEV technologies.

Hybrid passenger cars arrived in the United States in model year 2000, following their introduction in Japan a few years earlier. First came the two-seat Honda Insight, followed by the Toyota Prius in model year 2001. Honda then introduced a hybrid version of its Civic sedan, and Toyota offered a second-generation Prius. Ford plans to introduce its first hybrid, a version of the Escape sport utility vehicle, in model year 2005. Several other major automakers now either offer HEVs or plan to do so in the near future.

Hybrid systems have also proved effective in buses and heavy trucks. For example, Oshkosh Truck Corporation has demonstrated a diesel-electric system that may significantly improve the fuel economy and driving range of military vehicles. As a bonus, hybrids can be devised to generate alternating current electricity for other applications such as plug-in power tools. General Motors, through its Allison Transmission Division, produces a diesel-electric hybrid drivetrain for transit buses.

Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles
Driving our gas or diesel powered vehicles today we spend about 12 cents per mile for this fuel. But if we were driving electric vehicle's we would only spend about 3 cents per mile. Electric vehicle operation is also clean, quiet, largely independent of imported petroleum, and highly amenable to using wind or other renewable energy generation.

A roadblock to success for electric vehicles has been their limited range. With hybrid-electric technology, however, that roadblock can now readily be overcome. Add extra batteries to a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) and a way to "plug them in" and you can drive most of a typical day's mileage on clean, less expensive electricity, but still have an easily refillable fuel tank for longer trips. Some HEVs have already been converted to plug-ins and Mercedes-Benz is now making limited numbers of a demonstration plug-in Sprinter van.

Probably the biggest challenge plug-in hybrids have is the cost and weight of batteries. NREL is extensively researching thermal management, modeling, and systems solutions for energy storage technology. Even at today's battery costs, however, plug-ins may be able to repay their costs within a few years. NREL scientists and engineers also research improved power electronics critical to hybrid efficiency and conduct sophisticated modeling and analysis essential to showing the economic viability of plug-ins and identifying key areas for improvement.

Fuel Cell Vehicles
As HEVs gain a foothold, fuel cell technology is taking shape. Hydrogen fuel cells have long been used to generate electricity in spacecraft and in stationary applications such as emergency power generators. Fuel cells produce electricity through a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, and produce no harmful emissions. In fuel cell vehicles (FCVs), hydrogen may be stored as a pressurized gas in onboard fuel tanks. The electricity feeds a storage battery (as in today's hybrids) that energizes a vehicle's electric motor.

An FCV may be thought of as a type of hybrid because its electric battery is charged by a separate onboard system. This underscores the importance of advancing present-day HEV technologies. HEVs help reduce petroleum consumption immediately and provide lessons about batteries, energy storage, fuel advancements, and complex electronic controls that may apply directly to future transportation technologies. HEVs have federal and state purchase incentives that make them approximately cost-competitive with conventional cars and trucks. The challenge now is to cross that milestone with hydrogen fuel cells and FCVs.

DOE's Vehicle Technologies Program, launched in 2002 as the FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies Program, aims to cross this milestone by conducting research on advanced automotive and truck technologies that will provide the transition to hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
NREL researchers are also seeking to carry the plug-in hybrid concept a couple steps farther by making the plug-in reversible. Called a "vehicle-to-grid" or "V2G", such a two-way plug allows the home and vehicle owner and local utility to take advantage of the extra electrical storage capacity in the vehicle batteries to meet peak demand, provide grid support services or respond to power outages. In addition, utilities pay premium rates for peak and backup power and might pay commuters to plug their vehicles in while at work to ensure their employer has high quality power throughout the day. NREL transportation analysts are quantifying the potential value of such systems.

NREL works toward developing hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrids and fuel cell vehicles (FCVs); moving them from research and development to the marketplace. The laboratory began investigating HEV technologies more than a decade ago. In the past few years several commercial HEV models, which are powered simultaneously by batteries and fuel, have taken their place in the mainstream automobile market. More recently, HEV drivetrains have been used successfully in heavy-duty trucks, buses, and military vehicles.

NREL is also working to move HEV technology a step farther to plug-in hybrids that can "plug in" to store electricity and operate as clean, low-cost vehicles for most of their normal daily mileage. Taking that still a step further, NREL researchers are promoting development of "renewable communities" that would unite plug-in hybrids, zero-energy homes, and the full range of NREL-developed renewable energy technologies as a model for the future.

NREL is also actively researching various aspects of fuel cells and fuel cell vehicles. Fuel-cell vehicles will likely be much like hybrid vehicles with fuel cells instead of gasoline or diesel engines. So NREL's leadership role in developing this transportation technology of the future shares much with its research on hybrids, to mutual benefit of both.

---

SkinBotanica.com The Largest selection of Natural & Organic products


Real Goods Solar: Everything you Want to Know about Renewable Energy, Green Living & More!